Over the past few days, I've been fiendishly watching my CNN live feed from Japan, and it is now FOUR reactors that are melting. As of 11:30 pm Mountain time on Monday, there have been three hydrogen explosions........only confirmed by the Japanese government officials because there has been world-wide coverage and proof of these events.
And everyone forgets that the Chenobyl melt-down started with a hydrogen explosion.
One. By conservative estimates there are five (out of fifty-five) nuclear plants offline------and three of the five have suffered hydrogen explosions.
As expected, the Japanese government has consistantly denied that anything was out of control with their damaged plants, and refused help. All of the talking heads and politicos around the world attribute this to the Japanese culture of "saving face." They steadfastly refused help from the nuclear experts over the weekend (France and, sadly, the U.S.) and only now are allowing outside experts to step in.
Probably too little, too late.
The Japanese government is currently advising folks in the 20 to 30 kilometer range of these failing plants to "stay indoors, close all windows and doors, do NOT drink tap water or eat any food that has been exposed, and to "brush off the radiation before coming inside.""
The folks inside 20 kilometers are/or have been been evacuated, although there are 450,000 in refugee sites..........and my guess would be that they are within the 20 to 30 kilometer range.
17,000 people are missing in this area.
Dunno if any of these folks have gotten the message to "brush it off."
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God help us all......
:)
When they first started reporting on this story on Friday, and stated, "There is a nuclear reactor on fire..." I was like, "This is going to be bad...."
~shaking head~
I'd like to see the Japanese tell Putin to, "brush it off."
putting nps on the shoreline of the most earth-quake prone region on the planet may appear short-sighted, but there is not much empty space in japan, so they took a chance that the 10,000 year event wouldn't happen just now. missed it by that much...
the 10,000 year event did happen, and so far there has been no failure of the containment vessels. good engineering there, no over-building.
there has been some failure of ancillary plumbing, which is exciting enough for most people while not creating mass disaster. keep in mind that the ocean killed in thousands, the radio-active leaks not at all, so far.
does this make nuclear power less attractive? less necessary? no, and no. i never liked it any way, for several reasons, but this really changes nothing, except the excitement level of people who haven't grasped that there are no good answers to the coming energy crunch.